Face it, this game is in maintenance mode now, i.e. managed decline

[Naraku_Diabolos]

The thing is how do they actually pull the game up enough for people to care at this point?
We're looking at a 2027 launch as most likely for 8.0, MSQ was poor, OC and CE were both cool but don't have reason to do it for over a month, OC's bonus's only really matter for forked tower and CE is the relic (It's achievement mount being a recolor is ridiculous). Still over a year and a half for the next expansion and people be bored, raiding (when it comes) can also keep a person entertained only so long. A content drought worse than Endwalker's is coming except this time the good wills gone.

8.0 would have to be basically like a 1.0 -> 2.0 level change at this point.

8.0 comes out next summer. 7.3 is August 2025, 7.4 is December 2025, 7.5 is April 2026, 8.0 launches June/July/August 2026. Do the math and count the 4 month gap between content.

[NaoSen]

8.0 comes out next summer. 7.3 is August 2025, 7.4 is December 2025, 7.5 is April 2026, 8.0 launches June/July/August 2026. Do the math and count the 4 month gap between content.

5.5 -> 6.0 was 7 months, 6.5 -> 7.0 9 months, they have expressed being under strain. You're expecting 7.5 -> 8.0 to be 4 months ?
Expansions launch with far more content and changes than a simple incremental bump.

Dawntrail | 6.5 (Oct 3, 2023) → 7.0 (Jul 2, 2024) | 9 months
Endwalker | 5.5 (Apr 13, 2021) → 6.0 (Dec 7, 2021) | 7 months
Shadowbringers| 4.5 (Jan 8, 2019) → 5.0 (Jul 2, 2019) | 6 months
Stormblood | 3.5 (Jan 17, 2017) → 4.0 (Jun 20, 2017) | 5 months
Heavensward | 2.5 (Jan 20, 2015) → 3.0 (Jun 23, 2015) | 5 months

[Jeeqbit]

8.0 comes out next summer. 7.3 is August 2025, 7.4 is December 2025, 7.5 is April 2026, 8.0 launches June/July/August 2026. Do the math and count the 4 month gap between content.

You've misunderstood something. There is a 19 week gap between patches, but that is not the case between the 7.5 and 8.0. The gap between that is actually 8 months, because 7.5 is split into two halves so they have more time to work on the expansion. This has been the case prior to both Endwalker and Dawntrail, where the gap was increased from 5 months to 8 months.

• 7.4 23rd December 2025 (19 weeks)
• 7.5 5th May 2026 (19 weeks)
• 7.55 18th August 2026 (15 weeks)
• 8.0 2nd February 2027 (24 weeks)

Although there are normally 19-20 weeks between patches, it's a bit different for 7.55 and 8.0, but if you move the 4 over to the 15 weeks you get the same overall result.

Now, maybe they will try to put in a lot of effort and make it sooner than that. But how sooner? They might manage November 2026 again like they did with Endwalker. But to get it out in August 2026 would be some sort of big demonstration of how many more people they have employed to work on FFXIV.

[brinn12]

You've misunderstood something. There is a 19 week gap between patches, but that is not the case between the 7.5 and 8.0. The gap between that is actually 8 months, because 7.5 is split into two halves so they have more time to work on the expansion. This has been the case prior to both Endwalker and Dawntrail, where the gap was increased from 5 months to 8 months.

• 7.4 23rd December 2025 (19 weeks)
• 7.5 5th May 2026 (19 weeks)
• 7.55 18th August 2026 (15 weeks)
• 8.0 2nd February 2027 (24 weeks)

Although there are normally 19-20 weeks between patches, it's a bit different for 7.55 and 8.0, but if you move the 4 over to the 15 weeks you get the same overall result.

Now, maybe they will try to put in a lot of effort and make it sooner than that. But how sooner? They might manage November 2026 again like they did with Endwalker. But to get it out in August 2026 would be some sort of big demonstration of how many more people they have employed to work on FFXIV.

Just a small correction here. 5.0 patch notes released 24 months after 4.0. Releasing 8.0 in November 2026 is not putting in "a lot of effort". It's putting in no effort at all, considering they've managed to do it in late June before, following the same timeline.

[Jeeqbit]

Just a small correction here. 5.0 patch notes released 24 months after 4.0. Releasing 8.0 in November 2026 is not putting in "a lot of effort". It's putting in no effort at all, considering they've managed to do it in late June before, following the same timeline.

You're ignoring some important context here. They increased the timeframe of each of the major patches. So to release it after 24 months would require releasing it a lot sooner after 7.5 than they normally release a major patch even. The timeframe between final patch and expansion has generally always been longer than the timeframe between major patches, about 5 months until they increased it for Endwalker release.

I think you may underestimate how much they were actually pushing themselves to meet the 24 month timeframe as well, and the intent of it taking longer is to increase breaks, reduce burnout, and increase producitvity and consider the health of employees. This was likely also the case for major patches due to them having a wider variety of content types than they used to.

I remember they said how meeting one of the deadlines was going to be really tough and I think it must have been prior to Shadowbringers they said that, but they were going to do it anyway and crunch hard to keep it in summer. Then they flat out couldn't with Endwalker due to delayed contracts, remote working issues, etc. No doubt it was comfortable having more time so they seemed to stick with it.

So if they released it in November, that would be about 6 months after 7.5, similar to their previous timeframe of 5 months afer the .5 patch.